The rather odd role of the DDP’s office in the Fr Patrick McCabe case centres on the 1986 allegation involving abuse of a nine-year-old altar boy.

Chapter 20 of the Murphy report says that “the detective garda handling the investigation contacted an official in the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) seeking advice. The investigation stopped. No further inquiries were made by the gardaí”.

The report observes that: “When a Garda file is submitted to the office of the DPP for directions as to charges, if any, it is usual for the gardaí to submit a report with the file outlining the nature of their investigation, the evidence which has been gathered and their conclusions as to the charges, if any, which should be brought.

“No such report was submitted nor directions sought with this file when it was submitted to the DPP’s office.The Garda evidence to the commission was to the effect that the file was being forwarded more for the information of the DPP than for any other purpose.”

The report said “the DPP’s office, in an internal memorandum, expressed the view that Fr McCabe should be prosecuted, were he available to be prosecuted, (McCabe was then back in the US) on the basis that the boy’s statement of events was clear and convincing. The office commented on the incomplete nature of the investigation, for example, the failure to take statements from other children and the parents, but the ultimate conclusion was ‘Even if one could, I wouldn’t bother extraditing him’.”(report italics).

The report also found that, while there was “no documentary evidence available that the DPP’s decision was communicated by the Chief State Solicitor’s Office to the gardaí, the Garda superintendent of the district in which the event occurred told the Commission that he was aware that there was to be no prosecution.”